In a fast food environment, solid food products such as French fries are typically provided to consumers in small paper bags or larger cardboard containers. A store of bags or containers is generally provided in a stack from which one is selected. In one common approach, the selected bag or container is fitted on the bottom of a scoop and French fries funneled into the container or bag with the scoop. In another common approach, where the container is more like a traditional drinking cup, the fries are scooped or poured into the container without fitting the container on the end of the scoop.
Where cardboard containers are used (as opposed to paper bags), the containers have historically had two shapes. The first shape, shown in FIG. 1, is the shape of a traditional drinking cup 10 with a lip 12. The second shape is consistent with the more flattened container 20 shown in FIG. 2. This container 20 is of a generally rectangular configuration with a higher back wall 22 providing for or assisting in the scooping of the fries into the container.
Each of these shapes has drawbacks. The traditional drinking cup shape does not display the French fries in the cup except to the extent they extend above the lip of the cup. Moreover, such a shape is generally relatively expensive to make because of the thickness of cardboard used to make the cup. With the rectangular shape shown in FIG. 2, the container, when filled, will normally lie flat on its back panel such that the contents will tend to spill from the open mouth, unless the container is held upright in the consumer's hand or is otherwise physically maintained in a vertical position, for example, being wedged in a serving tray by adjacent products. Where a scoop is used to fill this container shape, problems may arise because of the relatively narrow elongate nature of the scoop and the angular interior corners of the scoop.
Various alternatives have been suggested to overcome the problems inherent in the shapes shown in FIGS. 1 and 2. More particularly, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,053,403 and 6,561,414, incorporated herein by reference, disclose improved container designs having substantially circular upper cross sections and generally rectangular lower cross sections. These containers 40 are made without a rim, with a minimum of folds and can be made of lighter weight materials than traditional drinking cup shapes. (See FIGS. 4 and 5). They can not only be readily accommodated within a conventional cup holder, whether in a carrying tray or a vehicle, but also provide a stable base for self-standing.
In the process of providing solid food products to consumers, the ready availability of containers is critical. However, not only must containers be readily available, they must be kept sanitary and out of harm's way. With prior shaped packages for dispensing French fries, two principal types of dispensers have been used to keep containers available. The first type of dispenser is a standard cup dispenser for rimmed standard drink cups that are used for French fries of the type shown in FIG. 1. The second type of dispenser is for holding the rectangularly shaped elongated containers of the type shown in FIG. 2. This type of dispenser, shown in FIG. 3, has a long channel open along its centerline. While this dispenser 30 holds solid food product containers securely, all of the containers are exposed to the air—a configuration that is not ideal from a sanitary standpoint. Moreover, this configuration does not sufficiently inhibit multiple container dispensing.
With the invention of the improved solid food product containers depicted in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,053,403 and 6,561,414 additional dispensing problems have arisen. These new designs do not work in standard drinking cup dispensers since they lack the rim necessary to fully engage the dispensing mechanism. Still further, the nearly circular cross-section of the top of the new container designs such as that shown in FIG. 4 cannot fit in the same dispenser previously used to dispense the more rectangularly shaped elongated containers. (See FIGS. 2 and 3).
As can be seen, the current approaches to providing solid food product containers to persons who have the task of filling them with solid food products suffer from certain drawbacks and limitations. Accordingly, a need exists for a system and method that provides an improvement over existing dispensing systems and methods, and solves certain problems associated with existing systems and methods.